Say konnichiwa to Japanese Gears of War

by Richard Mitchell { Jan 23rd 2007 at 2:00PM }

So, Gears of War is apparently (and surprisingly) selling very well in the land of the rising sun. It seems that something about Gears of War has penetrated the cultural barrier and has made an impact. Of course, thanks must go to the localization team that hired new voice actors to dub all of the lines in Japanese. Many will recall that some games never see proper localization in other countries, lowering their appeal to prospective buyers (though occasionally making for some cheap, region free imports). The Japanese version of Gears (see above video) seems to have been done fairly well. The actors sound good, and the characters' lips are even properly synced with the Japanese dialog. Now let's just see if Gears manages to outsell Blue Dragon.

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Tags: epic, epic games, epic studios, EpicGames, EpicStudios, gears, gears of war, GearsOfWar, gow, microsoft game studios, MicrosoftGameStudios

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

BklynKid @ Jan 23rd 2007 2:24PM

I really wanna learn Japanese. The dub sounds good.

Jonah Falcon @ Jan 23rd 2007 2:31PM

You know, with the Japanese dialogue, Gears of War seems really REALLY Japanese.

vid33nyc1 @ Jan 23rd 2007 3:19PM

I agree it actually sounds pretty good.

Tiberius Jones @ Jan 23rd 2007 3:54PM

Impressive Japanese voice work. Actually seems to add some gravity to the game. My only wish is to hear the Japanese Cole, that has got to be funny.

This just goes to show, if the game is good enough, Japanese gamers WILL buy shooters. They just don't/won't buy cookie-cutter shooters.

Gears of War is a lot of things, but cookie-cutter, it ain't!

Nice job Epic. Now, can we get the bugs fixed soon....PLEEEASE!?

aragorn @ Jan 23rd 2007 4:22PM

Hee, I was right, it is neat to hear.

You'd think by now that if japanese developers... like capcom, really wanted their games to be a smash in the states, they'd invest the time and funds to bring in some american native translators, so we're spared the dialogue that's the next best thing to engrish.